"No—almost nothing, therefore——"
"We have a revelation."
"Which reveals nothing to me. I wish it did."
"Natalie, you demand too much. We are not permitted to know everything. We cannot be divine."
"And yet we can speak very positively; as if, indeed, we knew it all—some of us. But if nobody knows, nobody can be sure."
"I cannot argue; but I can tell you who tells me. God Himself. God speaks to the heart."
"Paula," cried the other, with startling earnestness, "I, too, have a heart. Teach me how to believe, and of all the wise you will be the wisest. Do I not know that life is barren? that the love of man cannot fill the heart? Ah! Paula, if that can do it, teach me the love of God!"
The tone rose almost to a cry. Paula was awed as a perception of the truth came upon her that here was a skeptic with religious longings greater than her own. "Natalie," she murmured, hiding her face on the shoulder of her companion, "we are told to ask. Pray, Natalie, to the One that knows it all."
"And will you pray for me?"
"I do."